Alison Cooper: Women CEOs are not a commodity

Alison Cooper, Imperial Tobacco Group's chief executive – and one of two
remaining women running FTSE 100 companies – said the dearth of female
leaders “needs to be sorted” without resorting to gender quotas.

Ms Cooper said: “I am not someone who supports quotas because quotas are around the demand side of the equation and you need to look at the supply side. And quick fixes on the supply side are not necessarily quality fixes. I don’t like to think we’re a commodity.” Speaking in a television interview with Bloomberg TV, she added: “It’s not a quick thing to sort."

Ms Cooper and Burberry’sAngela Ahrendtsre the only female CEOs left running companies in the benchmark FTSE 100 Index.

Companies in the index have a value of £1.6 trillion and employ about 5.7m people.

The European Union has failed to agree on a 40pc quota for women on company supervisory boards by 2020. Deliberation of EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding’s proposal is set to resume on November 14.

Ms Cooper, who joined Britain’s biggest tobacco maker in 2001 and became CEO in 2010, said she’s “very concerned” about addressing the issue with quotas.

She’s not alone. Virginia Bottomley, a former Conservative minister who now chairs the board practice at executive search company Odgers Berndtson in London, said the situation is “disappointing.”

‘Exciting’ Outlook

“I am in favour of targets because if it’s not measured it’s not done, but I have always been implacably opposed to quotas,” Ms Bottomley, 64, said in an interview last week. “It’s not just placing women on boards, but more profound issues around talent management.”

The European Commission’s legal service warned that a binding quota for women may be illegal ahead of a meeting, according to a person familiar with the talks. Lawyers said EU regulators don’t have the right to mandate binding targets for companies, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the process is private. EU rules can require companies to make efforts toward a target.

Ms Bottomley said the outlook for women is more “exciting” when one considers British companies outside the 100 largest, citing female CEOs including easyJet PLC’s Carolyn McCall, TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC’s Dido Harding and Louise Makin, CEO of drug maker BTG Plc.

Helena Morrisey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management and who runs the 30% Club, also said it is crucial not to jump to conclusionsthat women leaving senior roles in the FTSE meant they would be out of the public eye.

"In truth, we shouldn’t get too exercised about two women’s career developments. There are plenty of resignations of male chief executives that don’t cause anyone to extrapolate from the individuals involved to claim a trend – instead, we tend to look at what these men do next.

"Before jumping to conclusions, we should similarly watch that space in the cases of Dame Marjorie and Cynthia. When Kate Swann announced her resignation as the highly respected boss of WH Smith, she ruled out retirement and is expected to move onto bigger things after achieving what many thought impossible by saving that business – hardly a blow for female progression," she said.